Two sides,
More and more, I am hearing lawyers who are passionate about the law say that they wish they could change careers. The judicial system is nullifying laws by deciding cases based on favoritism.

Mindyme,
When this country was founded, it believed that certain people were property. So, if Plantation owner A killed the property of Plantation owner B, Plantation owner A compensated Plantation owner B. The value of the property, replacement value, and what Plantation owner B loss in production labor were considered damages.

That general attitude still reigns today. They figure that as long as human live is replaced with money, then the person(s) taking that life should not be punished anymore than a person who wrecked another person’s vehicle by accident.

Those settlements are seldom ever paid in full. So along comes J.G. Wentworth with an idea that those receiving financial redress can pay his company a percentage of the total settlement, to receive part of the settlement. (sigh)

The teen is suing the city for compensation, as well as four named officers and five unnamed officers for punitive damages on the grounds they falsely imprisoned him and conspired to frame him, according to a complaint filed in Brooklyn federal court on April 14.

“Enrique Del Rosario’s rights were violated when he was violently beaten and arrested by officers of the New York City Police Department, who unconstitutionally and without any legal basis seized, detained, and arrested him, and subjected him to excessive force and excessively and unreasonably prolonged, unnecessary, and punitive detention,” the complaint states.

That’s silly X, that would be like holding police at least financially responsible for violating our civil rights? We the tax payers have been perfectly willing to pay for our own abuse for all these years and look how well it’s worked out?

This is an interesting point. When the cities pay out millions of dollars in wrongful death suits; excessive force claims, guess who is left holding the bag. It is the tax payers. You would think they would be calling for police reforms just on this basis. This is tax monies which could be better allocated, like for hiring more teachers.

I think Freddie received his injuries from them before they put him in the van. That is why he is so limp and why they dragged Freddie. They should have called for an ambulance and not a van to transport him.

“The Baltimore police officer who led the initial chase of Freddie Gray, the young man who died after being arrested and suffering a broken neck, has twice been accused of domestic violence and was temporarily ordered by a court to stay away from a second person.”

He was placed alone, the police say, in the back of the van, in one of two chambers separated from the officers by metal dividers. Then the van drove for more than half an hour. Based on the timeline, there appears to have been at least three opportunities to have helped him. Four minutes into the ride, according to Rodriguez, the driver reported that he “believes that Mr. Gray is acting irate,” and a minute later the van stopped. But the only result was that the officers did some paperwork and put leg irons on Gray. Thirteen minutes later, there was some sort of check on Gray, after which the police stopped to pick up another prisoner. (That prisoner was also separated from Gray by the dividers.) Before the van drove off, there was, the police say, “some communication with Mr. Gray”—whether it was verbal or not isn’t yet clear.

One of the many questions yet to be answered is whether Gray was wearing some sort of seat belt, as is required. The injuries he had were not casual ones; the Sun spoke to medical experts who said that they would have been caused by serious trauma.

Was an injury to his back the reason that witnesses thought his legs didn’t work, or was he injured in the van? At the very least, anyone trained as a police officer would—or should—know that a spinal injury can be exacerbated if someone is moved improperly, whether by being dragged or bumped around in a moving vehicle.

Gray was in far worse shape at the end of the ride than he was at the beginning, which makes the question of what happened in the van an urgent one. It was, in effect, a black box that Gray entered. For many people in this country, that is too often a summary of their experience with the criminal-justice system as a whole. It is one of the reasons that people run.

Another cell phone video gives new perspective in the arrest of Freddie Gray, the Baltimore man whose family said suffered a fatal spinal-cord injury after he was handcuffed and put in the back of a police van, reports CBS News correspondent Chip Reid.

The new video, obtained by CBS Baltimore station WJZ, shows the police van, moments later, stopped a little more than a block from the arrest site.

Police say Gray was irate in the back of the van — so they briefly removed him to put on leg irons.

I’m guessing the 6 suspended officers included the four bike police and maybe two drivers of the paddy wagon? Not sure where the extra two officers come in. Do paddy wagons have two police officers in the cab one the driver the other for assistance if needed?

ST. LOUIS — Pine Lawn, a tiny St. Louis County town notorious for corruption and predatory ticketing practices, is being sued by its 80-year-old former mayor, who alleges a successor used the police department to falsely arrest him and portray him as a criminal.

Adrian Wright, Pine Lawn mayor from 1993 until 2005, says in a federal lawsuit that ex-Mayor Sylvester Caldwell was the town’s de facto police chief and used the force as a political weapon. Caldwell resigned last week when he pleaded guilty to federal extortion charges.

I think there’s another issue w/pinelawn about a cop rapist, but i’ll have to check on twitter to be sure.
But that whole area is a disaster. its bad. & we haven’t even seen the tip of the iceberg.

Hey Shannon. I apologize for my absence.
So, another city in St. Louis County has been placed under the spotlight. People are coming forward now since it appears that their work will not be in vain. There’s an overcoming of oppression, and I say GREAT!

“This is incredible!” University of Illinois Director of Trial Advocacy J. Steven Beckett said. “It appears to me that a lesser included offense was ignored because the proof of the greater offense was obvious. This put prosecutorial decision-making under scrutiny beyond anything imaginable.” In other words, the prosecutors were punished for not having charged Servin with a more severe crime. Even more remarkable, Porter came to this decision in what is known as a “directed verdict” before he even heard the defense’s arguments.

“When a motion for directed verdict is made by the defense, the evidence must be considered in the light most favorable to the prosecution,” Beckett points out. “What the judge did here appears to be just the opposite!”

It is not a surprise that Ms.Boyd’s family will not see justice through the criminal system. It is impossible for me to understand how an officer shooting a gun into a crowd is not reckless endangerment. This just points out that when a police officer is involved in a shooting or use of excessive force, that there needs to be an independent system to handle these cases.

Mr. Gray was hurt during the original interaction. They finished the job when they tossed him into the van without seatbelts as they rode hard through the streets. They killed him and they knew they were hurting him.

Gronda,
Prosecutors and judges are nullifying laws. It is not only in the realm of wrongful death, but also in employment discrimination laws. Congresses, both the U.S. and states, must legislate laws that provide requirements to prove cases.

Yes, Freddie was injured before he was placed in the van. He was a rag doll, unable to hold up his head, and unable to get his feet under him. But, today’s law enforcement takes authority to make medical decisions according to their own biases, and anytime they take a person into custody, they are using biases that the person is unlawful and deserves whatever happens to them. That has to stop.